The Grand Master Suite

So, it's been a gazillion years since I posted anything and I figured I give those reading my blog an update on our progress with the house.  We've slowly been painting and furnishing our casa and it is coming along quite nicely.  Here are some pics of our bedroom...

As you can see, Lulu is nice and cozy sleeping on my soft blue throw that I got from tar-jay.  The paisley pillows at the top of the bed, oh yeah, I made them.  Eat your heart out Martha Stewart (j/k that woman comes up with the most amazing crafty stuff).  The artwork above our bed is from Ikea (yes, possibly my most favorite store that ever existed).

Here is a slightly different angle of our room.  You can see the curtains we got from tar-jay (on clearance!) in our awesome bay window.  As you can tell, there is a blue and brown theme in our room.  I like it.  Chris likes it because I like it. :)  I think that's a good reason.

This is the "on-suite" bath...oh so fancy...You can see that we carried the light blue color into the bathroom as well.  Some people don't like those spaces to match, but I say...It's my bathroom and I like it that way. :)  No really, it just made sense.  There is no door to divide the room and bath area (I tried to talk Chris into a decorative curtain for a soft transition and he wasn't going for it) so using the same color scheme throughout makes those spaces seem more cohesive.  We're still not really done in here.  I still want to get a curtain or some type of light shade to go in the windows so I don't feel like I'm putting on a free show for my neighbors everyday.  I'm still working on finding the right one.

I had to take a picture of this cabinet.  This was my Valentine's Day gift from Chris this year.  I love it!  It's functional and pretty.  You can't really tell from this pic, but the glass in the doors has a nice design to it.

Last, but not least, for the master bed/bath area...A picture of my"furry baby." Doesn't she look so content with her little paws tucked under her?  She definitely likes that spot on the bed :)

Well, that's pretty much it for the master bed/bath.  I'll be taking some more pics of the different rooms as we make more progress...More to come!!!

Quick Update...

We've had the inspection on the home and all the important stuff came back good!  Yay!  Now, I will turn my attention to...dun, dun, dun...paint colors!!!  Yes, every inch of the house is going to be painted!  You all know that Chris is super excited...like a lot... :)  Good thing he loves me a lot!  Hopefully, the next update will be more pics of us moving in!

Update!

So, where the heck did I leave off???  It's been so busy...Chris and I started our house search all over again.  We attempted to put in an offer on a lovely foreclosure, but there were already two other offers on the house so we let it go and continued our search.  Then, we found one!  This house is a regular sale so we won't have to mess with all of the wait (and whatnot) that goes with a short sale.  It's a 4/2 with a 2 car garage.  We put in an offer, and they countered, then we countered their counter, and they countered again!  It was a good counter offer so we accepted. 
Then, the real drama began lol...On a Saturday, we sent over a signed contract with the counter offer the sellers had proposed.  It was sent back to us with changes in verbiage.  Fine...we signed it again and sent it back over (this was a Sunday).  We were told that they couldn't send it back to us til Tuesday because that was when the husband would be back at work (imagine me rolling my eyes).  So, Tuesday at the very last minute before the contract would expire the sellers sent the contract back again with MORE changes!  The big change was that they wouldn't pay for the attorney's fees which is kind of silly since they are paying for most of our closing costs.  Those do kind of wrap into the closing costs.  For those of you that know Chris, you know he's a pretty laid back kind of guy.  So, when I tell you that he was ready to walk away from the house at this point you know he was pretty frustrated.  Finally, it took me saying "either sign the contract today or don't sell your house.  And, of course, we're not paying for the attorney's fees."  Funny enough, the sellers got the contract back to us pretty quickly.  So, now we're under contract!  As our agent, Amy, said, "Let the real fun begin!"  The inspection is this week so fingers crossed that there is nothing crazy wrong with the house :)  Lesson learned this week:  Don't fall in love with the house.  Be ready to walk away!  There will be plenty of time to fall in love with the house after you've moved in.

Here are some pics if you're interested...

The front - Good curb appeal!

The backyard - Not too big, not too small, just riiiiiight...

The living room

The breakfast nook...I <3 the bay window

The other side of the kitchen...pretty standard

The master bedroom...again, loving the bay window!

Starting Over....

So, two weekends ago we had agreed to the amendment by the sellers' bankruptcy attorney and we were waiting on the sellers to sign the offer.  Apparently, these people who are going through bankruptcy like to "go out of town" a lot (go figure) so they wanted to wait until the beginning of the following week to sign the offer.  Well, on Wednesday we were given the bad news.  Another offer had come in.  Apparently, the listing agent was still letting the house be shown even though we had presented an offer (can we say unethical).  The listing agent said we needed to bring our highest and best offer.  So, basically these people were just dragging their feet to see if they could get a better offer.  Common sense tells me that the second offer was just high enough where we could have come back with something just a little bit better than what we had originally offered.  Our decision...we told the sellers to they suck!!!  J/K...Essentially, that's what we wanted to do though.  We decided to remove our offer since we didn't want to waste time doing business with people who were so unethical and dishonest.  Thanks to our agent, Amy, who told the listing agent of what she thought of the whole business (professionally, of course).

So, let the search begin...again...

Let the 45 day countdown begin!

Ok...so, here is the update...the sellers wanted to forward our offer to their bankruptcy attorney.  This is totally understandable.  If I were in their financial situation, I would probably do the same thing.  BUT, instead of having a response from the sellers in 24 hrs it took basically a week to hear anything.  Once we did hear from them, an amendment had been made to the offer by the attorney.  Since we've asked the sellers to cover our closing costs (which means the lender would really be covering our closing costs), the attorney doesn't want the actual sellers responsible for the closing costs in the case that the lender accepts our offer, but denies the covering of our costs.

While all of this was going on, my handy real estate agent (Amy) did some digging and found out that not only is this a short sale (which we knew), but this is a short sale with two mortgages!!!  What does this mean?  This means that not only does the first lender have to approve our offer, but the second lender does as well...ugh...So, the whole process will probably take longer then even we originally thought.  Of course, things could go very quickly as well, but I don't think the statistics are in our favor on this one.  I have a feeling Chris and I are going to be learning a lot about short sales in the coming months :) 

Here is to the next 45 days of waiting (and wishing and hoping and thinking and praying)!

Found One!!!

So, after the 3rd weekend of house hunting we found a house!  Pretty fast if you think about it...We've put in an offer and now comes the waiting part.  I hate waiting.  Anyone who knows me knows that while I have many virtues, patience is not one of  them lol.  So, expect a stressed out Tara for a bit...  Here are some pics for those who are curious!

Backyard (Apparently, the preacher who had the house built wanted the cement slap just like that so he could grill away from the house.  Chris definitely likes this.)

Front

Living area

That's the formal dining room and the entry way off of the living room (I <3 the arches)

Kitchen (I can handle the white cabinets, but the countertops would have to go)

I can't wait to decorate!!!

House Hunting...

...Who knew it could be so tiresome, annoying, and exciting all at the same time?  We completed our second go round of looking at houses this past weekend.  We saw a nice house in an older neighborhood that we probably wouldn't consider living in.  Not because it's older, but because of the area around it...can we say scary and ghetto?  The second house we saw was still being inhabited by the tenants....I don't remember much from this house except the woman that answered the door wasn't wearing any pants and their dog kept jumping on Chris and me.  I think I must've blocked everything else out....Apparently, the property managers weren't able to get ahold of the current tenants to let them know that the house was going to be shown that day and we woke them up (at 11am...do people really sleep that late anymore???).  The last house was nice, but oddly laid out.  You could tell it was being used as a party house since there was a bar set up as soon as you walked in...pretty nice...and there was an amp hooked up for some rockin' out.  These people were also learning Italiano...go figure.  This completed our viewing of houses that day.  I'm pretty sure our real estate agent was as disappointed with what we saw as we were lol!  So, lessons learned this weekend:
1.  Be patient and don't expect to find your dream home right away.
2.  Don't be afraid to tell your agent you don't want to see a home if it isn't in the right area for you.  If there any kind of decent agent, they will respect your wishes.
3.  Don't get discouraged!  See rule #1...

And, the search continues...